In Helaman 9 when the
prophet Nephi gives the second sign to the unbelieving judges, there are some
very odd features about it that have puzzled me more and more.

25 And
now behold, I will show unto you another sign, and see if ye will in this thing
seek to destroy me.

26 Behold
I say unto you: Go to the house of Seantum, who is the brother of Seezoram, and
say unto him—

27 Has
Nephi, the pretended prophet, who doth prophesy so much evil concerning this
people, agreed with thee, in the which ye have murdered Seezoram, who is your
brother?

28 And
behold, he shall say unto you, Nay.

29 And ye
shall say unto him: Have ye murdered your brother?

30 And he
shall stand with fear, and wist not what to say. And behold, he shall deny unto
you; and he shall make as if he were astonished; nevertheless, he shall declare
unto you that he is innocent.

31 But
behold, ye shall examine him, and ye shall find blood upon the skirts of his
cloak.

32 And
when ye have seen this, ye shall say: From whence cometh this blood? Do we not
know that it is the blood of your brother?

33 And
then shall he tremble, and shall look pale, even as if death had come upon him.

34 And
then shall ye say: Because of this fear and this paleness which has come upon
your face, behold, we know that thou art guilty.

35 And
then shall greater fear come upon him; and then shall he confess unto you, and
deny no more that he has done this murder.

36 And
then shall he say unto you, that I, Nephi, know nothing concerning the matter
save it were given unto me by the power of God. And then shall ye know that I
am an honest man, and that I am sent unto you from God.

37 And it
came to pass that they went and did, even according as Nephi had said unto them.
And behold, the words which he had said were true; for according to the words
he did deny; and also according to the words he did confess.

38 And he
was brought to prove that he himself was the very murderer, insomuch that the
five were set at liberty, and also was Nephi. (Helaman 9:25-38)

Take that first
question, “Has Nephi, the pretended prophet, who doth prophesy so much evil
concerning this people, agreed with thee, in the which ye have murdered
Seezoram, who is your brother?”The question is technically a loaded one about on par with “Have you
stopped beating your wife, yes or no?”The question Nephi tells them to ask presupposes that Seantum has
murdered Seezoram, and an innocent man would object to that presupposition, as
would a guilty man who wished to conceal his guilt.Yet it is very strange that with all the other emotional and
physical reactions that Nephi prophesies that Seantum will have later, this
first question doesn’t seem to raise anything besides a simple “No.”What is he saying no to?We can observe that the simple “no” can
be taken as a denial of both agreement and murder or an ambiguous denial of one
of those.This doesn’t seem to get
anyone anywhere.

I really didn’t understand why Seantum was
not worried until the second question, “Have ye murdered your brother?” and not
when the first is asked.

What I finally
realized was that the judges questioning Seantum were also part of the
Gadianton robbers.This may seem
obvious, but as I thought about the true implications of this, I began to
realize that this brought into the dialogue a subtext that Seantum would read
differently than he would have if the questioning had been done by someone
outside the Gadianton robbers.

We have to keep in
mind that the Gadianton robbers protected their own from suffering for their
crimes or from being exposed to Nephite justice, so the Gadianton judges
probably thought that if they did the
questioning, they could protect Seantum and that Seantum would easily deny any
charge against him.What they
didn’t realize was that the line of questioning that Nephi laid out for them
was inspired by God with the purpose of using the Gadianton’s own association
and culture of wickedness against them, using questions that would seem almost
absurd.It is likely that if the Gadianton
judges suspected any particularly pointed question, they would have altered it
or softened it.That they didn’t
alter it meant that they thought there was no way that it would succeed and
therefore wasn’t much of a danger to them or Seantum.

What the Lord
designed that first question to do was give Seantum the impression that his
questioners were speaking to him confidentially about Gadianton business,
merely to find out who was involved in a particular caper.“Has Nephi, the pretended prophet, who
doth prophesy so much evil concerning this people, agreed with thee, in the
which ye have murdered Seezoram, who is your brother?” It makes it seem like they were
uninformed the murder was supposed to happen and they just want to get the real
facts of the matter.Again, an
innocent man would immediately have been worried by this question, but a
Gadianton would not, if talking to other Gadiantons.

The second question
was, “Have ye murdered your brother?”The Gadianton judges thought it would be easy for Seantum to make a confident show of denying his involvement
and bold-face his way through it.They fully expected that Seantum would deny it, but they didn’t realize
that the question carried subtext to Seantum that they perhaps didn’t mean.In Seantum’s eyes, that question would
reveal that they were not asking in the role of fellow-associates, but as investigators.Investigation implied they
didn’t approve of the murder.(They may have approved, but the question made him think they
didn’t.)Thinking they didn’t
approve might lead Seantum to think that somehow he had run afoul of a
particular Gadianton faction that favored Seezoram over him and was angry at
what he had done.He might worry,
not about Nephite justice, but Gadianton “justice.”Or he might begin to wonder if his questioners were going to
throw him under the bus and betray him for their own advantage.It is here that he begins to fear, to
not know what to say (since he no longer is sure these questioners on really on
his side), and to deny his guilt and declare his innocence.But his denials are too delayed.. and they are desperate.

Then, they examine
Seantum and find blood on the skirts of his cloak.This puzzled me for a long time because it seemed incredibly
stupid that Seantum didn’t get rid of his cloak or have it washed or
something.I mean, really!You’d think he would be smart enough to notice he had blood
on him, right?It kept bothering
me until I noticed it talks about “the skirts of his cloak,” and not
“skirt.”It may have been multiple
panels of cloth that made up this cloak, not just one, possibly to indicate
status.The more cloth involved,
the more difficult it would be to catch and clean blood spatters.

The next questions
the Gadianton judges asked –“From whence cometh this blood? Do we not know that
it is the blood of your brother?”—might sound to them like they are making a
wild assertion, especially since for all they know Seantum could have killed
other people since killing his brother.But to Seantum it would sound like his questioners had seen his
animosity and jealousy against Seezoram building for a long time and had
predicted that it was only a matter of time before he struck.It would make him wonder, “Am I that
transparent?”This would make him
worry that other Gadiantons saw it too and disapproved.This made him tremble and look
pale as he worried he would have to deal with the anger of other Gadiantons.

The next thing the
Gadianton judges say seems even more
strange.“Because of this fear and
this paleness which has come upon your face, behold, we know that thou art
guilty.”It seems odd to tell
someone they are guilty just because of the fear they manifest.It is contrary to all our ideas of
justice!People are supposed to be
pronounced guilty because of direct evidence or a collection of circumstantial
evidence that strongly supports an inference they committed the crime over
other options.The blood on
Seantum’s clothes could be called circumstantial evidence, but they don’t really
have a way to say with scientific certainty that it is Seezoram’s blood.And yet, this wacky line is
enough to put the fear of God into Seantum and make him confess
everything!So what is it about
that observation that scared Seantum even more?

To the judges making
those statements, it would sound like another bold assertion that was full of
hot air.To Seantum, it sounded
different—menacing.Why?As I pondered and prayed about this, my mind fastened
on the words “thou art guilty,” and I remembered another verse earlier in
Helaman:

And whosoever of those who belonged to their band should reveal unto the
world of their wickedness and their abominations, should be tried, not
according to the laws of their country, but according to the laws of their
wickedness, which had been given by Gadianton and Kishkumen. (Helaman 6:24)

Seantum thought
he was being pronounced guilty by Gadianton law in an impromptu trial and that
he was about to be punished for his crime.If he had been innocent, being called guilty just because of
his fear and paleness would have made him angrily declaim against the injustice
of it, but Seantum was too well acquainted with Gadianton trials to see that
declaration as meaningless.It is
possible he himself had condemned other Gadiantons under similar groundless
causes with flimsy or nonexistent evidence.Further, he thought he was being condemned for revealing
Gadianton doings to the prophet Nephi, thus his fear, his confession, and his
violent insistence that Nephi knew nothing
about the matter except it were given by the power of God.

So, the miracle
of Nephi’s second sign is that even with Gadiantons trying to protect their own
in the questioning process, the questions that looked harmless and laughable
forced them to condemn one of their own and prove Nephi’s innocence.It is a prime example of how the Lord
takes the wicked in their own craftiness.

2
comments:

I love this analysis. I think that you're right - it is important to remember that the Gadianton Robbers were thinking a lot differently than "normal" people would. They were entrenched in their world of sin and treachery.

These stories in the book of Mormon SO remind me of Shakespeare...both exciting and instructive.

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Michaela Stephens

Arizona, United States

I'm a happily married 32-year old who switched from Electronic Engineering Technology to Literature, Writing, and Film.
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